I just wanted to share this very cool color photo of George Reeves as Superman at a public appearance to promote Superman toys.

I know the TV series "The Adventures of Superman" was instrumental in getting JB interested in superheroes, and eventually comics. I also enjoyed watching the series in syndicated reruns when I was a child.

Did you watch the show? What are your thoughts about it... favorite episodes, and such?

I saw it on DVD a few years ago (some episodes had aired on UK TV many moons ago).

I really like the stories. I would have preferred more supervillains, but it was all utterly compelling. Episodes such as "The Haunted Lighthouse" and "Night of Terror" are gripping from beginning to end.

"Night of Terror", which sees Lois kidnapped at an inn in Canada, is one of my favourites. Sure, the criminals aren't going to give Superman a hard time when he catches them (I enjoyed seeing him clean their clocks), but that episode, like many, often featured Clark having to solve a mystery or "crack a case" in order to learn where the bad guys or a kidnapped colleague was.

Nothing but respect for the show, Matt. Thanks for posting that picture.

George Reeves will probably always be 'my' Superman in the sense that the reruns are where I first experienced the character, before the comics even. I know for most people my age its Christopher Reeve, but I only had access to his performance in televised showings of the first film, which were three hours or more with commercials. My childhood attention span never made it to him putting on the costume. So I appreciate the Reeve films as an adult, but when I think of Superman, particularly when I picture Clark Kent, its the George Reeves version engrained in my brain.

I remember it in reruns as a kid, coming on in the evenings right around supper time. Because I was a Marvel kid, the tv show, the movies, and the Superfriends were my Superman stories until Man of Steel. I own the entire series on DVD and break them out pretty often.

The Adventures of Superman was a pretty darned good treatment of the Man of Steel. Strong characters, usually strong stories (from what I recall), and what I liked best was that Clark Kent was not a craven coward; he was a serious character.

George Reeves was a great Superman! He could be tough, or nice, or funny, and I wouldn't have wanted more from a Superman than that. I feel that Chris Reeve followed in his footsteps and example.

I don't remember too many TAoS having Lois try to dig up Superman's identity, which was fine with me.

And certainly, my favorite Superman moment had to be his guest spot on "I Love Lucy." "And they call ME a Superman!"

As a youngster I was often aggravated by color and black and white episodes of AOS. I was a little too young to understand that the series had aired for years and some were older than others. I think the first episode I must have seen was a later one and in color so it was imprinted on me that the show was in color.

It always caused some anxiety waiting for the show to come on and hoping the TV wouldn't go on the fritz again and lose it's color just when the Superman show was on. I'd fiddle with the knobs, twisting and twisting trying to get the color back, thinking I'd finally got when the commercial came on and then getting mad at the TV again when it went back to the show and turned black and white again.

Of course, I used to wonder why the song on the radio in the car didn't pick back up from when we got out of the car and turned it off. Things were much different back when I was the center of the universe.

It was a staple on our b&w tv in the early '70s. The opening and closing was always exciting even if an individual episode here and there was a bit run of the mill; you'd stick around just to see those bits again! No wonder the occasional dumb kid might actually have thought it was real and jump in the air with a towel tied around their neck back in the original airing time, I can see that, although not off a roof. I think a lot of kids would yell Shazam! back before that with that slender hope that it was worth one try. :^)

...Was it filmed in colour? I recall reading that Reeves wore a brown outfit as the contrast looked better with

it being filmed in black and white...

Bill, the first few seasons were filmed and broadcast in black and white. And, yes, for those episodes the actual costume worn by Reeves was brown, gray, and white, instead of read, blue, and yellow. Later episodes were filmed in color, but original broadcasts of those episodes were still aired in black and white. They would eventually be broadcast in color when they were put into reruns after the series stopped production of new episodes.

As an amusing experiment, watch "Superman's first night" from SUPERMAN - THE MOVIE (1978) with the color turned off. You'll very quickly see why Reeves wore that oddly colored suit for the black and white filming.

While Iíll always view Reeve as the ultimate personification of the character for the original movie only, I think he was let down by the following films. There was something a little too alien in his approach that obviously was the version of the character in the books at the time. Reeves on the other hand, while not in the best physical shape, had the character and his humanity locked down so perfectly that it overcame whatever shortcomings there were production wise. I havenít seen every episode but I can tell what endeared him to an entire generation as Superman. I doubt the likes of Cavill will be able to say the same. Maybe if we could merge Reeve and Reeves weíd have the ultimate Superman.

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